The Walk: Part II

Good Morning.  It is 5:29 at the moment, and I've been awake for about an hour.  I finally gave in and pulled myself out of bed, as those to do lists are still waiting.  Pitty Pat the cat who so often insists on sitting on my lap when I'm on the computer, is actually curled up next to me taking a morning nap after an extra early breakfast.  (Guess who woke me up because she was hungry at 4:30 am?)  A few minutes later Madeline was barking at the car which was coming down the road to deliver the paper.  She starts when they get to the neighbor's house, and continues this morning drama until the car drives away.

So...back to the story.  I believe I had been wandering about the forest for about two hours when we left off. 

There I was, panicky, my heart in my throat, my legs feeling a bit like lead, and the forest seemed to be full of taunting trees.  Usually I'm a tree hugger, but when one is lost amongst them, trees become quite sinister.  This increases the panic.  Even the most experenced hunters have lost their way at times, and have felt the panic of the forest.  I think that's why the god of the forest is named Pan.  Panic derives from the name. 

Finally I took some deep breaths and tried to calm myself down enough to think about what to do.  I suddenly remembered what Steve had said about the area:  If you ever get lost in the woods around here, just head downhill and soon enough you'll come to a road.  I could breath again.  And that's just what I did.  I climbed over a wooden fence and headed down hill.  Soon enough I was in a pasture on a very big hillside.  And off in the distance there was indeed a road.  Glory be.  I started to weep in relief, and headed down the muddy hill.  It wasn't long before I was falling on my patooty.  This happened several times.  One of those times I landed in a cow pie.  Lovely...now I smelled to high heaven.  I didn't care, I just kept getting up and sliding in slow motion righjt back down on my butt.  The smell from the cow pie was bringing back memories from my childhood in Nebraska.  I spent a lot of time out on the farm of my brother in law who always warned me to stay out of the pasture where he kept the bull.  That bull was dangerous as all get out.  Panic was returning as I looked around for the absent bovine.  The pasture was empty creatures, except the one sliding down the hillside, mostly on her backside. 

At long last I reached the bottom of the hill, and realized I was going to have to cross a stream.  But there, on the otherside of the stream, and what looked like a meadow and of course a fence, was that blessed road.  Surely there would be someone who would stop and help me.  I gazed at the cold water that was moving along as happy as can be, impervious to my plight.  I usually loved mountain streams, but the beauty of this one was lost on me.  I hope the reader can forgive the fact that I wasn't quite present to that part of the scene before me. 

Reaching down, I removed my shoes and and socks.  I figured I would want their warmth after the cold reality of that water.  The stream wasn't all that wide, and it was shallow enough.  It didn't take long to cross it.  Happily I set my foot on what I thought was solid ground.  Not so.  It was mud.  I took a step.  Surely this situation was going to change in a moment, and I would feel the strong earth beneath my feet.  Instead I sank up to my ankle.  It was a bog.  I didn't know much about bogs at the time.  I'd grown up in Nebraska where there was occasional quicksand.  But what in the world was this?  I took another step and sank up to my calf.  I twisted uncomfortably to look back at the hillside on the otherside of the stream.  The scene was fairly dramatic looking.  Adding to the sheer size of that mountainous, muddy hill, my imprints from slipping and sliding down it looked for all the world like the fingerprints of someone trying to find a last hold before falling over the edge.  It was not a hill I would normally attempt to climb, and that would be when I was feeling energetic.  At the moment I was so exhausted I didn't know how I was going to go on, much less go back.  There was no way in the world I was going to get back up that hill.  I gave it one last glance before turning around and facing what could very well be my last moments of life.  There was no one in sight...a farmhouse in the distance.  A road with no cars.  And me...at the edge of a bog that extended before me.  (I learned later that the little stream I had just crossed was the headwaters of the Delaware River.)

Hope you're enjoying the suspense.  Of course I'm still here, so you know the story ends well.  But there's still more to tell!

The Walk: Part I

A map of the area...wish I'd had this for my walk!

It is interesting how memory gets erased or at least impeded from year to year.  The rain is falling today, as it does every April.  It is a cold rain and if one spent much time in it, it would feel like an icy rain.  There are piles of "to do" lists scattered around the room, but if you'll indulge me, I would like to take a little trip back in time.  About 13 years to be exact.  Thirteen years ago I came to upstate New York to stay with friends while I got back on my feet.  A relationship had ended in Oregon.  It was a sad ending, and the grief sat heavy in my chest.

The day was shaping up to be much as this one is as I slid out of bed and slipped into my sweat pants.  I remember those comfy red sweats.  I don't particularly remember the shirt I wore that day, but then that was salvageable at the end of the day.  Unlike the sweats.  I headed downstairs and out the door after a brief "good morning" to Sue, one of my oldest and dearest friends.  She was drinking coffee and making breakfast for the guys.  Steve, her husband and Peter, her 10 year old son.  Since my arrival a few days before, there had been much story telling and gales of laughter around the kitchen table.  It was good to be with friends during this transition.

Pulling up my hood and zipping my coat, I was ready for a walk down the road.  It had been my habit to walk 2 or 3 miles every day for as long as I could remember.  Walking was something that moving wouldn't change.  The scenery however had.  I missed the Oregon landscape, but upstate New York has it's own beauty.  So after walking the mile down the road and starting back, I noticed a path across a little meadow and into the woods.  I decided to take a shortcut back to the house.  The Catskill mountains which surrounded me in a breathtaking vista are part of the oldest mountain range on earth.   Steve had filled me in on the local geography of the place, and I loved the fact that my feet were walking this ancient landscape.  As these things passed through my thoughts, I was passing a lovely pond and then entering the woods.

The path was clear at first and I thought it headed in the right direction, but it wasn't long before the path disappeared.  I felt somewhat confident.  After all, this was all within a half mile of the house.  Of course two hours later, that was no longer the case!  Passing the same old ramshackle building for the fourth or fifth time, I finally accepted the reality that I was lost and scared to death, not to mention exhausted and hungry for breakfast.

It is definite progress after 13 years that I can tell this story without hyperventilating.  More tomorrow!

Walk Safely!

The Smallest Unit of Life

Wow...we have finished Unit One in Anatomy and Physiology.  The photo to the left is from Wikipedia, and is taken of red blood cells.  Drs. Noguchi, Rodgers, and Schechter of NIDDK were the photographers.  Do you know what the largest cell in the world is?  An ostrich egg.  That's wild!  Do you know how to identify whether or not something is alive?

Do you realize?  And do you recognize
that there are six characteristics to life! 
Yes, six characteristics to life.
If it can respond and reproduce
                                        Grow, metabolize
                                        Move and Differentiate
                                        It matters not the size,
                                        It is alive
                                        if it has the six characteristics of life.

This little ditty is supposed to be spoken a bit like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. 

My brain is a bit saturated with this stuff, so I took a nice long walk at one of the waterfalls in the area.  How this place feeds my soul!  Up to overflowing and then some.   All of these billions of cells that make up my being, sloshed along (you see we're 60-75% made up of water!  So I think that's why we human beings love the water so much.  I walked by the water, soaking up the sunshine despite the cold air.  It's enough to want to shout like some Baptist Preacher from the south:  "GaLOOOOW-RY!!  Gorgeous and glorious filling me up with pure happiness.